


For all those pages thumbed

by bladeangel



Series: Witchertober 2020 [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Growing Old, Jaskier grows old and becomes a scribe, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Prompt Oxenfurt, agnst, nobody actually physically dies, talk of death and dying, the current vibe is Jaskier post mountain saying fuck it and going off to live a quiet life, witchertober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26905177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeangel/pseuds/bladeangel
Summary: The closest thing he had ever had to home was Oxenfurt. The academy where Jaskier was born, where he built himself stitch by stitch into the troubadour whose songs would one day be sung across the land.When the time came Jaskier returned to Oxenfurt.
Relationships: Essi Daven & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Valdo Marx, Jaskier | Dandelion/Priscilla
Series: Witchertober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955281
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	For all those pages thumbed

**Author's Note:**

> Its the 9th and i just word vomited the prompt for day two but hey at least I'm writing I guess! Day prompt was Oxenfurt and I ended up exploring the idea of homes and where you go when you're finally done.  
> This is pretty angsty and navel gazey because I'm in a bit of a mood and this stuff is pretty much all i can write recently.  
> Can anyone find the Geralt cameo in this one?  
> Unbetaed all mistakes are mine please feel free to offer concrit in the comments.

Home had always been an odd concept for Jaskier.

For most noble children, home meant the manor houses they grew up in, filled with servants beneath their notice, and family members who held infants to the ideal of how the highborn were to comport themselves.

Home for noble children was lonely.

For the average bard or minstrel home, or at least something close enough to it, meant whatever minor court or noble house where they received a long-term invitation. Their continued comfort depending on their skills as a tutor for ill-tempered young nobles and occasional entertainment at winter parties. The understanding being that should they fail to provide they would find their welcome wearing out.

Home for bards was precarious.

Had anyone ever asked Jaskier The Bard about his home. He would have happily told them that for a wandering bard such as him the only home he would ever need was the open road. The sky his roof and the grass his bed, the allure of meeting interesting people and creating art without measure worth far more than a simple building or room.

True bards after all, could not stay in one place lest they stagnate and lose the favour of their muse.

Bards were fleeting creatures. For a traveling bard to make a home was akin to death.

The closest thing Jaskier had ever had to home was Oxenfurt. The academy where Jaskier The Bard was born, where he built himself stitch by stitch into the troubadour whose songs would one day be sung across the land.

It was in Oxenfurt that Jaskier became himself, it was there that he was sheltered and supported and educated by his alma mater. Where he spent his spare hours working as a scribe to support himself, made friends that he still met regularly to this day. Essi, Pricilla, Shani, and Valdo among them. 

Sometimes, on those nights when a hunt had gone well and things were good between them, Jaskier entertained the thought of making himself a home in those moments, when the fire burned low and the night chorus began its first notes, the sun having dipped below the tree cover and made its way into his companions eyes. Yes, he would think romantically, he could make a home in long days of travel, unremarkable campsites, gold eyes and silver swords and leather armour. Death, destiny, heroics, and heartbreak.

It was a fool’s hope, and Jaskier knew it, but still he clung to those soft thoughts until there was nothing left but scraps of fond memories clutched between his desperate fingers. Death and heartbreak and a dragon mountain in his wake, Jaskier kept moving, he sang and composed and moved with a feverish determination. Looping around the continent until his knees begged for relief and longer still.

Somewhere in the depths of his heart Jaskier knew that it was almost time for him to stop. But he pushed forward still, afraid of stopping, of stagnating, of dying if not in body then in spirit. He had not done all he had wanted to, needed to. And yet, there was no avoiding the inevitable.

When the time came, Jaskier returned to Oxenfurt. His lute he passed onto a spritely young thing stuck in a village three sizes too small, chest burning at the injustice of the world and lungs fit to tear down walls. Whether it would be cherished or sold he could not tell and knew it did not matter either way. The lute would find its way into the right hands sooner or later, he knew, it was simply a matter of time.

He took up his old post as scribe and worked to pay off the small dwelling he lived in.

The minute Jaskier the scribe’s pen had first touched paper he knew that Jaskier the bard was dead. There was a relief in that, old and weathered as he was, there was no connection between himself and the infamous bard Jaskier to the casual eye, all that was left was a tired old man. The news of Jaskier the bard’s death spread in its own time, many mourned him and some of his works made their way into the academy’s curriculum. Floating in the minds of students who would someday go out and do better in their own way.

It as an odd experience being dead, Jaskier found, time moved slower with the monotony of the everyday and yet things seemed to change within the blink of an eye. One day he looked up from his work desk only lock eyes with the familiar face of Valdo across from him, his beard as greyed as Jaskier own and his eyes as tired. Another day he saw the face of his dear Priscilla and yet another little Essi, not so little nor young anymore.

They went out for drinks afterwork, sat exhausted in a non-descript tavern tending to their cups, talking quietly in the way only tired old souls could. With time it became a tradition, and they regulars to the little tavern.

Essi nudged him with her shoulder one day some years into their routine, her head tilted towards an elven lute, still as fine as the day it was made, clutched in the hands of a young thing with fire in their heart, their voice a challenge to all comers. She knew the story. They all knew each other’s stories by now. There was no mockery among the dead, only sympathy. Understanding.

They continued drinking and the bard singing but his gaze strayed often to that beloved instruments, it was well cared for and clearly cherished by the owner. An unfamilliar scratch on the bulk spoke of continuing adventures, the owner themself was caught up in the fever of performance. Singing to a figure seated in a shadowed corner untouched by the regular crowd. It was obvious that as far as the young bard was concerned there was only one patron worth singing too in their little tavern.

Valdo quirked a wry smile and raised his glass in commiseration, there was the taste of irony in their next sip. They had become the background actors in the lives of others. Everywhere they looked there seemed to be shades of others they had known in their youth, there sat Shani, tired after a day of selling poultices and ointments for the everyday needs of the common man. Kalkstein leaning against the bar, eating before his shift at the workshop. There still others, the living dead, shadows of the once great lumbering through the rest of their days, waiting for the end.

Oxenfurt, it seemed, would be the closest to home any of them would ever find.


End file.
